This document describes an online course on Wi-Fi throughput developed using the FORGE platform. The course consists of interactive exercises that take 2 minutes or less to complete, allowing students to understand real-world Wi-Fi network performance. Exercises are deployed across wireless nodes and controlled by a single machine. The course is implemented as a web application for cross-platform access and uses learning analytics to collect student feedback. It has been used by over 135 students across several university computer science courses.

1. IMINDS ONLINE COURSE:
WI-FI THROUGHPUT
21 January 2016
dr. Daan Pareit
iMinds / Ghent University, Belgium

2. FORGE
• FORGE = Forging Online Education through FIRE

3. Course context
• A series of interactive exercises to obtain
an understanding in the real-life
performance of Wi-Fi networks
• Bite-sized exercises of max 2 minutes per execution

4. Course context
• Different teaching settings
 lab session style with parallel setups
 ad-hoc based remote learning

5. Context & overview
t
SIFS
DIFS
data
ACK
waiting time
other
stations
receiver
sender
data
DIFS
contention

6. • Show wlan course site
http://forge.test.iminds.be/wlan

7. Deployment of the iMinds course
One machine controlling
the experiments
Three wireless nodes
performing the experiments
http://forge.test.iminds.be/wlan/
e-Learning:
an interactive Wi-Fi course
Automatic provisioning
Graceful degradation
IPv4 to IPv6 gateway

8. Course implementation blocks

9. 9FORGE Project FP7-ICT-610889
http://forge.test.iminds.be/wlan

10. 10FORGE Project FP7-ICT-610889

11. 11FORGE Project FP7-ICT-610889

12. 12FORGE Project FP7-ICT-610889

13. • Web first approach allows publishing to virtually any platform
• Modern web browser
• FORGEBox.eu
• Any LMS supporting iframes
• Apple iBook
• EPUB3
Cross platform

14. 14FORGE Project FP7-ICT-610889https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/forging-online-education-through/id1062612920

15. 15FORGE Project FP7-ICT-610889

16. Reservation web interface (student)

17. Reservation web interface (teacher)

18. Learning Analytics

19. “The exercise(s) helped me understand the
subject of this course.”

20. “The exercise(s) helped me self-assess my
progress during this course.”

21. Open positive feedback
• “Not overly focussed on knowledge by heart, more on the
understanding and practical use of theory”
• “Everything was easy to execute, it was all about
understanding”
• “No configuration hassle, nice and easy graphs”
• “No struggling with configuring systems. Because of this, the
assistants had more time to extensively answer the questions
that we had.”

22. Audience
Students in Bachelor/Master in Computer Science Engineering
a. within the course “Mobile & Broadband Access Networks”
Ghent University, Belgium
• 90 students
b. within the course “Wireless Networks & Communication Systems”
Trinity College, Ireland
• 25 students
c. within the course “Local Area Networks”
Universidade de Brasil, Brazil
• 20 students
d. within the course “Networks & Security”
Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain
• 6 students

23. Similar course: LTE course
http://forge.test.iminds.be/lte

24. Hands-on
• http://forge.test.iminds.be/wlan
• https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/forging-online-education-
through/id1062612920
• http://forge.test.iminds.be/lte
• http://ict-forge.eu
• http://ict-fire.eu